You said the leftover sponge can be kept in the fridge-how long will it keep? I'm sure I'll have to feed it from time to time-when? Then I can just start at the sponge step say next month when I want to make another loaf right?

So inquiring minds want to know how to use a dough hook to do most of the kneading. I know you still need to finish kneading the last bit by hand...but how do you know when to take it out of the mixer.

I'm sad to report that my dough just did not rise. After 24 hours it still looks like it did when it went into the bowl. Perhaps I had a kneading issue, I followed all the directions to a T until you got the the kneading. I used a dough hook on my stand mixer!! I have huge pipes but I'm just lazy. ;-)

thanks for this amazing blog, I'm doing a research for my Graduation project on Sourdough (I live in London, UK), and as I have never baked one before, your blog is saving my life, I was going nuts to understand the amount of the information I gathered, but visualizing it is much easier.

I'm not getting the spong right, I've been trying it for few times and it doesnt seem to want to bubble, I get all the foam on top, but no sponge, would you give me some inspiration please?

Hi chef, thanks for replying. I made it, even tho I didnt get big bubbles in the "sponge" step I moved fwd and made the dough last Thursday, and then baked it on Friday morning. It looked fine and the result was amazing! I got a beautiful loaf of bread in the end, and it tasted very nice. My friends approved! ;-) Anyway, now is the science bit, and already froze half of the loaf for future studies in the lab. I'll let you know the results. Thanks for all the help.

Thanks for all the information. It has really helped me in my quest of baking a "good" loaf of sourdough. One question, though. When I make the "slashes" on my loaf, before baking, it deflated a little. Did I possibly make the slashes too deep? Thanks in advance, NanaDeb

I had the same problem with my dough not rising. I followed everything step by step and waiting until my starter was nice and super bubbly. Then I made the recipe and . . . nothin'. Even after 24 hours. I will try again, but I'm not sure what happened.

Thanks for an awesome blog! A quick question--on the second day, my starter rose up and got really bubbly like how I imagine the sponge should do. However, since there were not lots of tiny bubbles I kept "feeding" the starter for a couple more days. I never got that same reaction again, but finally got a fair amount of tiny bubbles a couple days later.The next day I finally made the sponge, but got no reaction from it, other than the typical starter activity(tiny bubbles and a the liquid separating from the rest).Any suggestions? Thanks.

Hello! I am on day 5 of my sourdough, since day 3 (after feeding my starter for the first time) my starter has looked more like a sponge big and bubbly after 24 hours, I started to barely see the frothy bubbles on day 4 a few hours after feeding it, so I put it in the fridge and made my sponge today. I think I may have done it too early.It has only been 5.5 hours but it is looking frothy like it should have before the sponge.I plan on waiting a few more hours and trying to make my bread anyway, to see how it turns out. but do you have any idea if and what I may have done wrong? so I can do it right next time.did I make my sponge too early?

Chef John,My first loaf, using your technique and recipe is in hour two of it's first rise :) My last few attempts using other methods produced wonderful, heavy door stops. Or bricks lol I am so hopeful this will finally be the attempt that produces a fine loaf of delicious sourdough. Thank you so much for the posts and the videos! I'll let you know how it turns out!Suze